Nick The Knight
by Hisa-Ai
Summary: Set just after "First Date." Nick wanders into Jess' room in the middle of the night and catches her doing something she'd rather no one know about. Like, ever. But now that Nick knows and her secret is out, will he make fun of her, or just make the best of it? Ness.


**So, the latest episode of New Girl, in case you didn't notice, left most of the fandom feeling rather pissed off, but, as things have started to cool off and the smoke has settled, people are kind of beginning to come to terms with it and settle down a bit... Personally, it still frustrates the hell out of me, but we won't get into that now. So this is one of the less angst-filled fics I've written lately, because I think we could all use a little break from that for the moment.**

**I started writing this Wednesday, but then once the episode aired Thursday night, I adjusted the things accordingly, and this is how things turned out. I'm actually quite pleased with it, all things considered. So enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own "New Girl" or anything else mentioned in this fic that you might recognize from _anywhere_, because that's how life works when you're obsessed with tumblr and sometimes kind of lazy.

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**Fic:**

Jess didn't even know how it happened. After that date/not date with Nick was over and she left the kitchen with her food and Nick, she closed her door and just _stood_ there for a few minutes, her heart pulsating in her chest and radiating through the wood she was leaning against, her goodnight feeling bitter and unreal on her tongue even all these moments later. She didn't know what they were, what she wanted to be, what _he_ wanted to be and it was just... _too_ much. Too, _too_ much.

Swallowing back tears of frustration, she sat her food down on her desk and quickly changed into her pajamas, throwing her clothes into a pile on the floor and hoping to just _forget_ about everything that had happened that night as she ate some of her chips and salsa.

And then, once she was full enough to shut her stomach up, she walked over to her bookshelf and took down her book of fairytales.

It was never something she planned to do, but every now and then she would pull out that big book of fairytales she'd had ever since she was a little girl, and just...

Read the _hell _out of it until she fell asleep between the pages of fair maidens and wicked stepmothers and princes that tricked evil kings into giving them their happily ever after's and everything else that made up the stories of her childhood. There was just something about a few good fairytales that sweetened her dreams and painted the dark clouds white again, something that always had her coming back to them whenever she was having a bad day, something she hoped would _always_ be there to cheer her up whenever she needed it.

Of course, she'd never own up to the fact that she still enjoyed fairytales from time-to-time to, like, _anyone_, but then, no one ever had reason to ask; Jessica Day might eat sunshine with her cereal every morning, but surely even _she_ had out-grown fairy tales at some point.

But not really.

And she would have taken that secret to the grave, too, had Nick not walked into her room later that night and found her lying on the open book of fairytales, hand barely keeping her place and her hair splayed over the entirety of it, save for a sole picture of a knight on a horse he could barely make out in the dim of her bedroom. Still, it was enough to pique his interest, enough to help him _almost_ piece the whole thing together.

"_Jess_? What're you _doing_?" he laughed incredulously, jolting her awake from fairy-tale inspired dreams. She'd been having such a good one, too, one with dragons and unicorns and kings and a guy on a white horse who looked oddly similar to a certain Nick Miller...

"What?" she asked groggily, wiping a few strands of hair from her mouth as she sat up slowly, eyes adjusting to the lack of light in her room. When had it gotten so... _late_? And when had she fallen asleep?

"I _said_, what're you doing? What's that you're reading?" he asked, turning his head to try to get a better look at the title. Failing to do so – she _did _have it flat against her bed, after all – he walked over, sat down on the edge of her bed and snatched it up before she could stop him, her reflexes dimmed in his favor. "'Grimm's Complete Fairytales'? Jess, you read _fairy tales?"_ he asked, eyebrows raised in amusement. Oh, if he had come in for any other reason, he could have had _fun_ with this... Then again, she _had_ been reading _fairy tales –_ was he _really_ going to let her get away with that without as much as a word of teasing? Now what kind of person would that make him?

Jess, quickly coming to her senses, snatched her book back, closing it carefully and stashing it under her pillow before she turned back to him, face innocent and stoic at the same time. God, she could only imagine what he might say about it, how long he would go on and _on_ about it, who he would tell… What was he doing in her room in the middle of the night anyway? And after the night they'd just had...

"Can I _help_ you, Nicholas?" she asked, clearing her throat and rubbing her neck as he smirked devilishly at her. _That _could not be good.

"Why were you reading fairy-tales, Jessica?" he asked, ignoring her question completely. She picked up a pillow off her bed and held it close to her chest as she noticed he was still wearing his white shirt, a few of the top buttons undone, his tie loose and barely hanging around his neck, the sleeves pushed even further up his arms than they'd been the last time she saw him... He looked _much_ too hot to jerk her around like this at this time of night, she thought with a suppressed groan of frustration.

"I... because I..." she stuttered, visions of him gurgling his beer from earlier that night flashing through her mind and distracting her from any sort of excuse she might try to come up with. She sighed and fell back against her bed, still hugging her pillow close. Nick swallowed, smile faltering slightly. He slumped down on her bed, too, then, slowly falling so he was lying down on her bed across from her, then he turned slightly and grabbed one of her pillows, hugging it to his chest and mimicking her position.

A wall of silence came up around them, safe and awkward, graceful and ugly, as they just laid there, each clutching a pillow and resting on her bed, the book of fairytales forgotten until Nick sighed again and rolled over onto his back, staring at the ceiling as he listened to his heart thudding in his ear and him and Jess breathing in _perfect_ sync.

"Jess?" he asked in a soft whisper, glancing over to see what she was doing. She was still lying on her side, clutching a pillow to her chest and biting her lip, looking at him, almost looking _past_ him as she thought her own convoluted thoughts.

"Yeah, Nick?" she asked, just as quiet.

"Why were you reading those fairytales?" he asked, his tone more relaxed and serious than last time. He wasn't going to give her hell about it. No matter how much he _really_ wanted to, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Not at a time like this.

"I don't know, Nick," Jess sighed again, curling her body forward ever so slightly. "Tonight has been weird and I just... I needed a _break_. Whatever _this_ is," she gestured between them with her hands. "It's confusing and complicated, and I just... I needed to read about something more clean-cut, something that has a definite ending, a _happy_ ending, with a princess and a guy on a white horse who comes in and kisses the girl and rides off into the sunset with her where they have their happily ever after." she explained, clearly exasperated.

Nick nodded along with her, smiling slightly as he threw in, "You sure you're not confusing fairy-tales with Disney movies? I thought fairy-tales were supposed to scare kids or something?"

"Well, yeah," she waved her hand slightly, dismissing his objections. "Originally, that's what they were for, but over time they've evolved, so the collection I have has happy endings, not 'death to all Americans',"

"'Death to all Americans'? Did they even _have_ America when they first started writing fairytales?" Nick asked, tucking one of his arms behind his head as he turned to look at her, eyebrow quirked once again.

"You know what I mean," Jess rolled her eyes and hit him with her pillow, sending a few feathers flying out and landing in his hair and on his face. He rolled his eyes back and blew a stream of air up, sending one of the feathers flying towards Jess, who batted it away and sent it, instead, back towards him. He caught it that time and held it in his hand, fingering it gently as he looked back over to her, face melted into a complacent one as he asked,

"So, fairytales, huh? You into that whole knight in shining armor on a white horse type thing or what?"

"Yeah! I mean," Jess sighed and turned over onto her back so she was looking at the same dark ceiling he was. "I would read these stories when I was a little girl and I would dream about the day when _my_ knight would come. Just, this guy who would love me unconditionally and help solve all my problems and _be_ _there_ for me, and just be like the guys, the knights, in all those fairytales. I've been waiting a long time for my knight to come, Nick." She looked at him out of the corner out of her eye; his head was turned now, looking at her sideways in a way that made her stomach flip. He was smiling about something or another in a sly sort of way that she could just _tell_ meant trouble for her. But… she didn't even care at this point. Let him make his jokes or laugh at her. It didn't even matter anymore.

"Hmm." He said instead, taking the feather he still held in his hand and tucking it into one of his pockets before reaching his hand over to touch her hand, slow, tentative; middle school _dance rules_ meant middle school _actions_.

Silence fell over them again as they both thought about her declaration, knights were getting harder and harder to come by these days, and sometimes it felt as though Jess' would never quite come for her. Maybe that was how she dealt with it all, all the heartbreak and the jerks; maybe that was how she stayed so… happy and perky all the time, the hope that her knight would come around one day. Not a prince, but a knight – what was the difference, though? Nick wondered. Besides the fact that they made Disney movies about princes and not knights – one that would come into her life on a horse and save the day.

For a moment, he wondered if that person might have been Russell – after all, he had been as knightly as they come – but she said she was still waiting for her knight, so, as in love with him as _Nick_ might have been, maybe Jess didn't see him that way? If she didn't see _Russell_, though, of all people, as the knight in shining armor type, then what other guy could possibly stand a chance to live up to that expectation?

Probably no one, but still, he had to try… Right?

"Hey, Jess?" he asked, still looking at her at his odd angle.

"Yeah, Nick?" she asked back, slowly wrapping her fingers around his.

"I know," he took in a breath, the dark ceiling barely lit by the light streaming in from his room across the hall giving him a sort of strength he didn't know he possessed. He always did seem at his most courageous when the sun went down and he had a good beer or two in him.

"I know I'm not exactly the kind of guy they write fairytales about – I break things, I get angry a lot, I drink a lot of beer and I work at a bar – not a good combination at _all_, not one made by rational, _normal_ people, anyway – I've lived with the same guy for over ten years, I'm terrified of commitment, I do a lot of stupid things, I don't shave often, I'm terrified of horses, I think all fish are evil and are not to be trusted, I once went over forty-eight hours without once leaving the couch, and I… I screw things up, and I can't always fix them, and when I try I use a lot of duct tape and crazy glue, but…" he sighed and tightened his grip on her hand ever so slightly, his tirade coming to an end as her doe eyes found him like beacons, always lighting the way back home and bringing him to his senses, while at the same time pushing him further and further away from them. A perfect storm, a perfect dance.

He had come into her room for an entirely different reason – he had wanted to ask her if the middle school dance rules thing meant they had to use the bathroom in shifts now, as a sort of ice breaker before he asked her what she had written on her card and then he just sort of planned on playing it by ear – but when he thought about it, it was sort of the same thing he was doing _now_, wasn't it?

"I know I'm not the sort of guy they write fairy tales about, but if you want… I mean… _I_ could be your knight in shining armor, Jess." He offered, feeling stupid as he said it, the silence echoing in on itself as the darkness, once offering him strength and courage, now just mocked him; here he was, a _grown_ _ass_ _man_, over here using fairy-tale metaphors to try to woo the girl of his dreams – how _low_ could he _sink_? His heart felt ready to beat him over the head with the brain he was clearly not using as he waited on her answer, her eyes still locked on his in silence.

"Yeah, Nick," she swallowed after a while, smiling at him softly as she nodded her head. His heart melted at the realization of what her next words just might be. "I'd like that." She finished, scooting closer to him on the bed. He rolled over onto his side and threw an arm around her in a half hug, leaning over slightly to try to steal a kiss – all knights get kissed after they've saved their fair maiden, after all, it's fairytale _law_ – but Jess ducked out of his way at the last second, pulling her book of fairy-tales out from under her pillow instead.

As Nick watched her curiously, she sat it down in front of him and reached over to turn on her bedside lamp before she turned back to him and flipped open the book to a random page. She found the next fairytale that started and looked up at Nick, he had one arm wrapped around her like he was never going to let her go again, and he was looking at her with – dare she think it? – smoldering eyes that she _hoped_ would never stop looking at her like that, so hungry and ready for _more_.

"What're you doing?" he chuckled in spite of himself, looking between her and the open book carefully. She shook her head in return and tapped the pages of the book.

"If you're going to be my knight, you're going to have to learn to _act_ like one," she said pointedly, smiling and referring him back to the book as he caught her drift and laughed. Of course, _that _was where she was going with it! He wouldn't have it any other way. "And you have a _lot_ to learn, Mr. Miller," she chastised playfully, poking him in the chest.

"Hey, well," he grinned slightly, a devilish shadow plaguing his features. "I might not know much about knights, but I do know that when they rescue their fair maiden, they get a kiss – where's my kiss, Day? Or do I have to make some calls to the Fairytale Land Officials? They don't take these things lightly, either, 'ya know. They might just lock you up with the Big Bad Wolf." He threatened playfully. Jess laughed at him then and leaned closer, lips just barely keeping any sort of space between them as she whispered,

"Well, we wouldn't want _that_, now would we?"

"No…" he whispered back just as she closed the gap and properly rewarded her knight in sometimes-not-so-shining armor with a short, sweet, fairytale worthy kiss.

It didn't matter what _this_ looked like to anyone else, or what it really was or what words they used to describe it, they both realized then, because he was her knight. That was just all there was to it.

And "Nick the knight" _did_ have a pleasant sort of ring to it, if Jess did say so herself...

**Fin.**

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**This is just nice, light little fic because, quite frankly, I needed a break from all the god damn _feels_ of the last few episodes. Seriously, it's just been a lot to deal with lately considering the fact that I think, at some point, New Girl was supposed to be a comedy, you know?**

**Also, I really like fairytales, so I thought it'd be really cute for Nick and Jess to kind of come together because of them, and it is. Plus, middle school dance rules are stupid anyway. **

**Always,  
**_~Hisa-Ai~_


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